I've been a bit off my game the past week or so for various reasons (Magin having bronchitis as well as coming to fully appreciate the unlimited Netflix "Watch Instantly" option along with discovering an unexpected appreciation for "Friday Night Lights"). However, with the weather warming up (at least temporarily), I'm feeling more focused.

The short update is that I'm up to 79 pages. The more important question is whether I'll finish the rest of chapter two this week, so that I can move onto chapter three in February. I'm hopeful. Stay tuned.

I should qualify that my first draft of chapter two is an even rougher first draft than my 'first draft' of chapter one. There is, nonetheless, a marked improvement from a zero draft (a stack of photocopied pages and notes in manila folders) to a first draft. There remains editing to do and connections to be drawn, but the first draft is a major step.

I have completed a first draft of my first chapter -- emphasis on first (of many) drafts. The chapter is exactly 30 pages. So with 6 pages of frontmatter and a 6-page draft of an introduction, that makes 42 pages (of 150-200 total).

I'm tempted to spend another week or so on revising the first chapter, but I am finding two major dynamics at play that lead me to move on to chapter two next week: (1) In each section I'm writing no more than 20% of what I could potentially say and (2) I'm seeing how each decision I make has ripple effects across every other section and chapter as well as over the whole book.

For #1, the whole process so far has been one of winnowing. I'm coming to see this book as a performance. There are so many possible directions, spins, and moves that could be made. The challenge is choreographic: selecting, blocking, and directing the players that will work best together for the larger whole of what is possible in 150-200 pages.

I always thought as an undergraduate and graduate that my dissertation would finally be the time when I could read all there is to read and say all there is to say about a given topic. I now that preconception as naive. Even with one's magnum opus (which this dissertation certainly isn't), there is still 80% or more left unsaid; however, I hope that with this dissertation as well as in the future that I am becoming increasingly wise about what to include in the 20% I put on stage in the final draft.

For #2, I feel like I need to go ahead and write my first drafts of my other chapters, so that I can get a sense of the larger whole. In other words, even if I spend another month on chapter 1, I would have to make changes whenever I did eventually write the rest of the my chapters.

Although I have a good idea of the overall shape of my project, there is still discovering in the writing process itself of exactly what I think and in explicitly trying to say what I think as effectively as possible. There is also a challenge in the discipline of focusing what I have to say into pages that are no more than 30 pages or so each.

So, Monday I'll move on to chapter two. I'll likely spend a good part of the week organizing my notes, and the next three weeks writing -- so that I'll hopefully have a 30-page draft of chapter two completed by the end of January.

Stay tuned.

So, to keep to my original deadline of one chapter per month, I'm going to move on to chapter two next week. However, I suspect the final revision and editing process will likely take longer than I expected -- just as the transition from reading to writing process took longer than I originally guessed.

I have 27 pages written, with a goal of 150 pages by the end of May 2010.

The maximum my program allows is 300 pages, but I hope to write no more than 200 pages. I figure if I set my sights on 150 (the minimum), I have room to expand if needed. I'm hoping this limit also will help discipline me. After all, most books I read could stand to be shorter (that is, better edited), not longer.

My current total of 27 pages includes a 5-page introduction, which I project will eventually become 10 pages, but it's almost impossible to fully write an introduction of a book I'm still in the process of writing. It is like trying to introduce someone you haven't met yet :) So, I'll settle for a inchoate half-intro for now.

The number 27 additionally includes 22 pages of my first chapter, which has four major sections, three of which are essentially complete. I hope to finish the final section (which will run 10-15 pages) in the next two days. But I'm not includes estimates from the final section at the moment because the draft is so rough (more of a "zero draft" than a first draft).

Then, I'll spend the rest of December (with breaks for Christmas and New Year's) tightening, making connections, weaving in thematic material, etc.

Hopefully in early January, I can transition into drafting, writing, and editing chapter two -- with the goal of starting chapter three by early February.

We'll see.

I haven't posted in almost two month principally because I've been transitioning from reading to outlining. Now I'm writing. The first section of my first chapter is drafted. My goal is a chapter/month. We'll see if I'm being realistic. Accordingly, I've change the title of my blog to "Will I finish writing my dissertation by the end of May 2010?" I hope to have a 150 page draft by then. Again, we'll see. Stay tuned.

So far it feels fairly reasonable to work through about one shelf (of a five-shelf bookcase) per day -- reviewing the pages I previously marked over the past year of reading, photocopying the salient passages, tagging the photocopies, and sorting them into a file folder for each respective chapter (or section of a chapter). The process is quite similar to the many long, research papers I have written in the past, except I'm working on a much larger canvas.

I am hopeful that I may even finish this major part of the sorting process by the end of next week, although that does not include sorting each of the individual folders into even more specific divisions within each chapter or section.

The sorting has begun.

I'm following a plan adapted from the book Destination Dissertation. So, I'm developing an outline, then I'll photocopy quotes I want to use and tag them based on my outline.

For now, I'm plowing through a bunch of notes I made for myself low these past few months. Now I have to organize them. I hope to emerge a week or two from now with a better map for moving forward.

I am essentially done reading, although I will, in reality, continue reading for my dissertation throughout the next year -- principally new books that will be released over the next year or so.

I'm, thus, in the process of shifting my focus from reading to outlining -- that is, directing my first and best energy toward outlining. I'm preaching this Sunday, but hopefully next week I'll be able to start outlining in earnest.